Yesterday I dusted my WRT32X and I installed OpenWRT 23.05. This router used to work fine with OpenWRT 19. Now I replaced it with Asus AX4200 and Netgear R7800. Nevertheless I want to give it another go before I dispose of it.
WiFi did not work at all, my mac could not connect from 5 metres away in a different room with the lid shut (docked). When I opened the lid I got a poor and unstable WiFi.
Should I give up or are there any news regarding WiFi support?
Install the current Main/Master Snapshot per @anomeome
I am on a WRT3200ACM myself. You may also find that the Divested-WRT build will do well for you. I transitioned over from one of David's old builds about 9 months ago, and although I now just use it as an access point, it's been smooth sailing ever since.
By the way, you can access and learn more about the Divested build on the forum here: Divested-WRT: No-nonsense hardened builds for Linksys WRT series.
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FWIW, I've been using my WRT32X with the original 23.05 release (23.05.0, r23497) with working WiFi. It's doing full duty (routing, firewall, wireless on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz) with almost 150 days of uptime.
I remember early on, I had some occasional drops on 5GHz where I would pick up my Android phone and see it quickly reconnect to WiFi as I unlocked the phone. But this was in the early few days after I upgraded to 23.05 and I can't remember if I tweaked something that made it stable, because I haven't seen the drops for at least a few months now. I currently have it set to AC-only, 80MHz width on 5GHz and N-only, 20MHz on 2.4GHz.
Maybe check to see that you have the correct radios configured? Mine has the third radio that isn't intended to be used, and always throws me off when I configure a fresh setup.
I tried both latest 23.05 and main build. Compared to other routers I have, WRT32x WiFi is extremely poor. Unusable even at short distances. I give up.
Maybe something on your specific hardware is failing? It'd be interesting to see if going back to 19, or even stock, would still demonstrate proper reception. If that's true, then it would prove there's still something buggy that needs to be fixed.
I've been using 23.05.2 for a while now and wifi has been stable. I had over 90 days of uptime with no issues until I had a power outage. I created older versions of mwlwifi from 2020 for other users who had issues, though I never had to use them. Maybe those might work for you too:
Here's something new:
" * mwlwifi: Add support for WPA3"
That's misleading since the patch for WPA3 is for WRT1900. So WR3200ACM / WRT32X probably still doesn't work. Great news for 1900 series though. Referencing the mwlwifi changelog: "Only 8964 left with broken WPA3":
[https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi/commit/f92043d1a85f61b379c3d6dcb5bdb6e849f6b791]
edit: I went ahead and updated the Linksys WRT AC Series wiki documenting the changes.
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Thanks. WRT1200AC also uses Marvell 88W8864 chip, correct? So, it should work there, too?
Correct it should work on both 1200/1900 series according to the mwlwifi changelog.
Has anyone had success getting WPA3 to work on these? I'm not able to test it in my circumstances, but am curious to know what people's results are.
Reported a working on 88W8864 devices.
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Some users have mentioned disabling the wireless radios on WRT3200/32X completely and connecting it to a wireless access point instead.
Can the same be done by connecting a mesh system (not OpenWrt) to the LAN port of the OpenWrt router?
I’m assuming that the mesh system would have to be into AP Mode Only for this to work. I have no experience with mesh systems and figured I should ask here first.
Thanks
Sure, within the config constraints of said mesh system (VLANs and multiple vAPs/ BSSIDs may be difficult to set up on many OEM firmwares). That's independent (and unrelated) to the wrt3200acm/ wrt32x and works with any wired-only OpenWrt device.
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@slh @robimarko @Kaloz why don't we see a merged commit?
@jbsky i saw these news pushed in ddwrt and the wifi part is stable, it moves very well!
wifi 5Ghz ddwrt
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I've been running on that branch for the last couple of months with no problems, but that's on a WRT32X with OpenWRT 23.05.5. Maybe more testing is needed for WRT1900X and WRT1200AC. I plan on testing it on 24.10.0-rc4 soon, but the fixes probably don't impact my setup.
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Hi everyone,
Can you test a version perhaps correcting the problems with the ESP8266 and wrt3200ac.
You can find the ipk for version 1.23.05 here:
https://github.com/jbsky/mwlwifi/raw/refs/heads/fix/esp8266/kmod-mwlwifi_5.15.167+2025-01-09-16de960-1_arm_cortex-a9_vfpv3-d16.ipk
Looking forward to your feedback.
The important parameters are the activation of “b-rate” and the deactivation of “Coverage Cell density” so as not to force rates too high for devices supporting only low rates.
Best regards,
Jbsky
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Hi,
Sorry for 'interrupting' this thread, but which is the best way to upgrade from a 19.x Version to the latest 24.x ?
Is the way to go back to a factory image really recommended?
I simply tried with sysupgrade force and don't retain config I got to the second fallback partition :-/ that was not going well, it seems....
Cheers
att